Both are excellent... i sat in on parts of 542 with Kevin Johnson of InGuardians and let be the first to tell you he is a great teacher. I also got to hear Ed's SANS@Night "Secret of Americas Top Pentesters" which was one of the best talks there. If you go for 560, Ed skoudis is also from InGuardians and at the top level of pentesters anywhere.

If you want to get a feeling what their teaching is like, check out the "Perfect Storm" series of webcasts.

In either case both classes are superb =)

Drop me a PM if you want to know specifics, i have close friends who have taken both courses.

I will not speak to the quality of the course since I teach it and would necessarily be more than a bit biased.

The course is in the process of transitioning to a 6 day format (previously 4) at SANS 2009 in March, so I would wait to gather opinions until after this debut. Also the associated GWAPT certification will go live at this point. My understanding is that the number of labs will increase significantly. I believe that Ed Skoudis (author of SANS 504 and 560 courses) worked closely with the author (and a colleague of Ed's) Kevin Johnson to expand the course.

SANS now will have 3 penetration testing courses covering Network, Web, and Wireless. Should be loads of fun. I would really love to see SANS come up with a pen testing GSE equivalent that required each...

I will be serving as TA for the course when it debuts, so feel free to ping me after for additional info.

As you know, I did a review of Ed's Network Pen Testing Course last year entitled Ed Skoudis and the Pen Testing Factory. EH-Net is going to have a big presence at SANS 2009 in Orlando and intends to round out the reviews of SANS Pen Testing courses. I will be doing the wireless course with Josh Wright and Ryan Linn is sitting this first offering of the 6-day version of Kevin's web app course. Both of us will do extensive reviews for all of you.

Along those same lines, I personally believe that Social Engineering (SE) is a fourth discipline of Ethical Hacking/Pen Testing. I have recruited 2 of the best professional pen testers who also specialize in SE, Mike Murray and Chris Nickerson. Many of you know Mike from Neohapsis of his numerous talks at almost every major conference and Chris from TruTV's Tiger Team. We have combined our efforts to offer a 5-day SE Master Class that will be first done at ChicagoCon 2009s and eventually offered in many other locations and venues. This will not be just a class to show the students cool mind games. It is going to focus completely on SE pen testing and interweaving SE into other disciplines... and have some really cool mind games. ;-) Look for a Core Security Sponsored webcast on this very topic with these 2 gentlemen in March. Wink wink nod nod.

With the 4 of these classes, I think you can clearly see that the industry is not only growing, but it is also diversifying.

Looks to be a great 2009 on several fronts.

Hope you guys don't mind me hijacking the thread to throw some unsubtle hints to the readers of upcoming projects. I thought it fit quite nicely here.